Nowhere to turn

The view from K Street, and from Main Streets across America, is somber. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, even among the 200,000-plus dead from the coronavirus, stills our hands. Her life also provides an opportunity to consider how others lead a public life.

Loss of trust

All of Washington is struggling to deal with presidential deceptions about COVID-19’s deadly threat. In the view here, the bond between the people and the presidency is based on trust, a core belief that the enormous powers vested in the office will be used—first and foremost—to protect the American people. That belief cannot be sustained.

We now face a surging virus and the prospect of flu with an anxious certainty that we cannot believe the President or his suborned appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or the crippled U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about any aspect of the botched response to the pandemic, be it vaccine availability, testing requirements, safe return to work and school, or even wearing masks. A confused and distrusting public, either leaderless or misled, is laid open to this unremitting disease.